Lost (19 page)

“Where is she?”

He drinks from a glass of lemonade and looks at Tottie. Why do I get the impression I'm about to be fed a plate of bul shit?

“Perhaps you should go inside sweetheart,” he says. “Tel Thomas he can clear these things away.”

Thomas is the butler.

Tottie stands and stretches her long legs. She pecks him on the cheek. “Don't let it upset you, dear.”

Sir Douglas motions us to the chairs, holding one for Ali.

“Do you know the hardest thing about being a father, Inspector? Trying to help your children
not
make the same mistakes as we did. You want to guide them. You want them to make certain decisions, marry certain people, believe certain things, but you can't make them go that way. They make their own decisions. My daughter chose to marry a gangster and a psychopath. She did it partly to punish me, I know that. I knew what sort of man Aleksei Kuznet was. It was bred into him. Like father, like son.” Sir Douglas slaps his racquet through the air again. “Oddly enough, I actual y felt sorry for Aleksei. Only an innocent mil ionaire would have satisfied Rachel—and short of winning the lottery or finding buried treasure in one's back garden, there's no such thing.”

I don't know where he's going with this but I try to keep the desperation out of my voice. “Just tel me where Rachel is.” He ignores the statement. “I have always felt sorry for those people who choose not to have children. They miss out on what it means to be human, to feel love in al its forms.” His eyes have misted over. “I wasn't a very consistent father and I wasn't objective. I wanted Rachel to make me proud of her instead of realizing that I should
always
be proud of her.”

“How is she?”

“Recovering.”

“I need to speak to her.”

“I'm afraid that won't be possible.”

“You don't understand . . . there was a ransom demand. Rachel believed that Mickey was stil alive. We both did. I need to find out why.”

“Is this an official investigation, Detective?”

“There must have been proof. There must have been some evidence to convince us.”

“I had a phone cal from Chief Superintendent Smith. I don't know him wel but he seems quite an impressive man. He alerted me to the fact that you might try to contact Rachel.” He is no longer looking at me. He could be talking to the trees for al I know. “My daughter has suffered a breakdown. Some very cal ous and cruel people took advantage of her grief. She has barely said a word since the police found her.”

“I need her help—”

He raises his hand to stop me. “We have medical advice. She can't be upset.”

“People have died. A serious crime has been committed—”

“Yes, it has. But now something good has happened. My daughter has come home and I'm going to protect her. I'm going to make sure nobody hurts her again.” He's serious. His eyes have a gleam of pure, unadulterated, idiotic determination. The whole conversation has had a ritualistic quality. I even expect him to say, “Maybe next time,” as though nothing would be simpler or more obvious than coming back another day.

Warm, melting undulations of fear ripple through me. I can't leave without talking to Rachel; too much is at stake.

“Does Rachel know that before Mickey disappeared you applied for custody of your granddaughter?”

He flinches now. “My daughter was an alcoholic, Inspector. We were concerned for Michaela. At one point Rachel fel in the bathroom and my granddaughter spent the night lying next to her on the floor.”

“How did you find out about that?”

He doesn't answer.

“You were spying on her.”

Again he doesn't respond. I've known about the custody application from the start. If Howard hadn't emerged as such a strong suspect I would have investigated it further and confronted Sir Douglas.

“How far would you have gone to protect Mickey?”

Angry now, he exclaims, “I didn't kidnap my granddaughter, if that's what you're suggesting. I wish I had—maybe then she would stil be alive. Whatever happened in the past has been forgiven. My daughter has come home.”

He stands now. The conversation is over.

On my feet, I swing toward the house. He tries to intercept me but I brush him aside and begin yel ing.

“RACHEL!”

“You can't do this! I demand you leave!”

“RACHEL!”

“Leave my property this instant.”

Ali tries to stop me. “Perhaps we should leave, Sir.”

Sir Douglas tackles me in front of the conservatory. With his tanned forearms and sinewy legs, he's surprisingly strong.

“Let it go, Sir,” says Ali, taking hold of my arms.

“I have to see Rachel.”

“Not this way.”

At that moment Thomas appears, wearing an apron over a pressed white shirt. He's carrying a silver candlestick like a club.

Suddenly the whole scene registers as being vaguely ridiculous. In Clue there is a candlestick among the possible murder weapons but, surprisingly, not a butler among the suspects. Blaming the staff is just another lousy cliché.

Thomas is standing over me now, while Sir Douglas brushes mud and grass clippings from his shorts. Ali takes my arm and helps me up, steering me toward the path.

Sir Douglas is already on the phone, no doubt complaining to Campbel . Turning, I shout, “What if you're making a mistake? What if Mickey is stil alive?” Only the birds answer back.

14

Fumbling in my pocket, I take out a morphine capsule and swal ow it dry, feeling it catch in my throat. Twenty minutes later I'm peering through pale translucent gauze. The car seems to float between the red lights and people drift along the pavements like leaves on a river.

A conga line of buses comes to a stuttering halt. My stepfather died at a bus stop in Bradford in October 1995. He had a stroke on his way to see a heart specialist. See what happens when buses don't run on time? He looked very distinguished in his coffin, like a lawyer or a businessman rather than a farmer. His remaining hair was plastered across his scalp and parted exactly in a manner he never managed in life. I copied it for a while. I thought it made me look more English.

Daj came to live in London after the funeral. She moved in with me and Miranda. The two of them were like oil and vinegar. Daj was the vinegar of course: balsamic—strong and dark. No matter how they were mixed together, they always separated and I was caught in between.

On the pavement, beneath a canvas awning, a young flower sel er is enclosed by buckets of blooms. Tugging at the sleeves of her jumper, she covers her fists and hugs herself to keep warm. Aleksei employs a lot of refugees and immigrants on his flower stal s because they're cheap and grateful. I wonder what this girl dreams about when she goes to sleep at night in her bedsit hotel or shared house. Does she see herself as being blessed?

Tens of thousands of Eastern Europeans have washed up here from former Soviet satel ite states that have declared themselves independent and then immediately begun to crumble. Sometimes it seems as if the whole of Europe is destined to tear itself apart, divided into smal er and smal er parcels until there isn't enough land left to sustain a language or a culture. Maybe we're al destined to become Gypsies.

Fury and fear are driving me. Fury at being shot and fear of not finding out why. I want to either remember or forget. I can't live in the middle. Either give me back the missing days or erase them completely.

Ali senses my despair. “Facts not memories solve cases. That's what you said. We just have to keep investigating.” She doesn't understand. Rachel had the answers. She was going to tel me what happened.

“He was never going to let you see her. We have to find another way.”

“If I could get a message to her . . .”

Suddenly, the curious, chemical detachment lifts and a face floats into my thoughts—a woman with dark-brown hair and a birthmark that leaks across her throat like spil ed caramel. Kirsten Fitzroy—Rachel's best friend and former neighbor.

Some women have a particular gaze from the day they are born. They look at you as though they know exactly what you're thinking and wil always know. Kirsten was like that. In the days after Mickey disappeared she was the rock that Rachel clung to, shielding her from the media and making her meals.

Kirsten could get a message to her. She could find out what happened. I know she lives somewhere in Notting Hil .

“I can get the address,” says Ali, pul ing off the road. She punches speed dial on her cel phone, no doubt cal ing “New Boy” Dave.

Twenty minutes later we pul up outside a large whitewashed Georgian house in Ladbroke Square, overlooking the communal gardens. The surrounding streets are painted in candy colors and dotted with coffee shops and outdoor restaurants. Kirsten has moved up in the world.

Her flat is on the third floor, facing the street. I pause on the landing to get my breath back. That's when I notice the door is slightly ajar. Ali peers up and down the stairwel , automatical y on edge.

Nudging the door open, I cal Kirsten's name. No answer.

The lock has almost been torn off and splinters of wood lie inside the door. Farther along the hal way there are papers and clothes strewn haphazardly on the sea-grass matting.

Ali unclips her holster and motions for me to stay put. I shake my head. It's easier if I cover her back. She spins through the door and crouches, peering down the hal way to the kitchen. I enter behind her, facing in the opposite direction into the sitting room. Furniture is overturned and someone has fil eted the sofa with a samurai sword. The stuffing spil s out like the bloated intestines of a slain beast.

Rice-paper lampshades lie torn and crushed on the floor. Floating flowers are marooned in a dry bowl and a shoji screen is smashed into pieces.

Moving from room to room, we discover more wreckage. Foodstuffs, appliances and utensils litter the kitchen floor between upturned drawers and open cupboards. A chair lies broken. Someone has used it to search above the cabinets.

At first glance it looks more like an act of vandalism than a robbery. Then I notice several envelopes lying amid the destruction. The return addresses have been careful y torn off. There is no diary or address book beside the telephone. Someone has also cleared the corkboard of notes and photographs. Torn corners are al that remain, trapped beneath colored pins.

The morphine has left me with a sense of depleted reality. I go into the bathroom and splash water on my face. A towel and chemise are folded over the towel rail and a lipstick has fal en into the bath. Retrieving it, I unscrew the lid and stare at the pointed nub, holding it like a crayon.

Above the washbasin, tilted slightly downward, is a rectangular mirror with mother-of-pearl inlaid into the frame. I've lost weight. My cheeks are hol ow and my eyes are deeply wrinkled at the edges. Or maybe it's someone else in the mirror. I have been replicated and imprisoned in a slightly different universe. The real world is on the other side of the glass.

Already I can feel the opiate wearing off. I want to hold on to the unreality.

Returning the lipstick to a shelf, I marvel at the salves, pastes, powders and potpourri. From among them I can summon up Kirsten's fragrance and our first meeting at Dolphin Mansions the day after Mickey disappeared.

Tal and slim with tapered limbs, Kirsten's cream-colored slacks hung so low on her hips that I wondered what was holding them up. Her flat was ful of antique armor and weaponry, including two samurai swords crossed on the wal and a Japanese warrior's helmet made from iron, leather and silk.

“They say it was worn by Toyotomi Hideyoshi,” Kirsten explained. “He was the
daimyo
who unified Japan in the sixteenth century: the ‘Age of Battles.' Are you interested in history, Detective Inspector?”

“No.”

“So you don't believe we can learn from our mistakes?”

“We haven't so far.”

She acknowledged my opinion without agreeing with it. Ali was moving through the flat, admiring the artifacts.

“What did you say you did?” she asked Kirsten.

“I didn't.” Her eyes were smiling at the edges. “I manage an employment agency in Soho. We provide cooks, waitresses, hostesses, that sort of thing.”

“Business must be good.”

“I work hard.”

Kirsten prepared us tea in a hand-painted Japanese teapot and ceramic bowls. We had to kneel at a table while she dipped a ladle into simmering water and beat the powdered tea like scrambled eggs. I didn't understand the elaborate ceremony. Ali seemed more in tune with the idea of meditation and “the One Mind.” Kirsten had lived at Dolphin Mansions for three years, moving in just a few weeks after Rachel and Mickey. She and Rachel became friends. Coffee buddies. They shopped together and borrowed each other's clothes. Yet apparently Rachel didn't confide in Kirsten about Aleksei or her famous family. It was one secret too far.

“Who would have thought . . . talk about Beauty and the Beast,” Kirsten told me, when she learned the news. “Al that money and she's living here.”

“What would you have done?”

“I would have taken my share and gone to live in Patagonia—as far away as possible—and slept with a gun under my pil ow for the rest of my life.”